Runelords 20.0 - The Gruul Homestead
Looking over the ramshackle farmstead, their view hampered by the pouring rain, the group debated their plan of approach. The firepelt mountain lion that they had freed from the trap paced at the edge of the grass, its intermittent stares urging them to follow it towards the wreck of a building, an equally-ruinous barn standing a bit further in the distance. Ilsa moved to steady it, and resolved to investigate: she was almost certain that the lion was the companion of a Black Arrow she knew, and if it was leading them anywhere, it would be to him. The other five nodded, and agreed to help search. Sneaking up to the building's back wall while distracting the patrolling ogre with the illusion of a running deer, the group hid themselves while creeping around the outside of the farmhouse and peeking through the cracked, boarded-up windows. The interior was dark, but this did little to hamper the rather disturbing images that Khyrralien, Eamon and Aldern saw while looking. The first room appeared to be a filthy bedroom of sorts: an absolutely massive female ogre was propped up on a dingy bed, her rolling, fatty flesh covered only by some dirty sheets. By the looks of her, she was probably too corpulent to even move herself, and she appeared to be painting some sort of words or runes on a make-shift canvas. Beyond her looked to be three other ogres standing in the corner, but all three were obviously dead, sporting mortal wounds that no longer bled. Whether they were grotesque puppets or actual undead, they couldn't tell. All three men who looked shuddered, and while Eamon struggled with his visceral disgust and Khyr attempted to explain it to those without the ability to see in darkness, frustrated with Virgil's interruptions and comments suggesting that he wasn't describing things effectively, Aldern composed himself stiffly and diverted Luna's potential attention away from the sight. The next room was a nursery, where two toddler-aged ogres played among bones and filth. Like the others, these two were both extremely deformed, and one danced about mockingly while the other cried petulantly, wanting to dance but unable to move on his misshapen, undersized limbs. The other rooms, a kitchen, a sitting room, everything that one would expect in a farmhouse, were empty, coated in filth, rust and succumbing to disrepair, furnished with bones, furs and questionable leathers. Having gone around the perimeter, dodging the guard, they prepared to send in a scout, deciding that their best bet was to continue sneaking. Khyrralien was sent in first, covered with an Invisibility spell from Virgil; he crept through the kitchen door and moved through the rooms, avoiding the nursery and bedroom. Though he sprung two traps that had apparently been set to guard the doors to the main room, getting himself stabbed by two falling scythes in the process, he managed to stay quiet enough that he did not alert anyone, and found no one, ogre or otherwise, elsewhere in the house. Returning to report and to have his gashes healed, Khyr told them of his two only relevant discoveries: a staircase going up, and a staircase going down. A quick debate of skills and spells led the team to split into three groups: Luna and Aldern, the two quietest individuals, would sneak upstairs through an outside window to investigate; Ilsa and Eamon, the two loudest members, would keep guard outside, and; Virgil and Khyrralien, reasonably quiet and aided by Virgil's invisibility, would descend into the basement. While Khyr and Virgil walked back to the kitchen door, Aldern politely offered to assist Luna up to the farmstead's second story; otherwise distracted, she didn't take any notice of the man's slightly curious, formal manner. Aldern managed to pry off enough boards to crawl through the broken window, and Luna inched through after. They found themselves in a bunk room, holding nothing but empty beds and a huge, heavy-lidded box in the center. Ignoring the box for the moment, they found there was only one other room on this floor, past the hallway that led to the stairs: a storage room that looked like it might have also been some sort of tinkering shop in the past. Picking about the debris and discards, the pair managed to find nearly three complete fancy lockpicking kits, as well as some vials of acid. Luna looked guiltily at them, and though she didn't take the acid, saying that she felt bad stealing, she did take one of the fancy pick sets, leaving her own standard set in its place with a rationalization that anyone who was working here, in these conditions, was unlikely to be able to tell the difference. Aldern took the other nice tools, and followed her back to the bedroom. Unable to resist the allure of the box, Luna tried and failed to open it; with Aldern's significant help, they pushed the lid back with a crash to find inside a large bag of coins. As they peered in, Aldern pointed out the base of the box, filled with no less than twenty severed fingers: the box was obviously trapped. Wrinkling their noses, Luna declared that they didn't need money that badly; Aldern agreed, and they climbed back out onto the roof and down to join Eamon and Ilsa. Meanwhile, the other two crept back into the house and down the stairs; invisible now, Virgil shifted to his demonic form in order to better see. The base of the stairs left them in a narrow hallway, with a door on either side and a door at the end. Each man customarily took a different door; Khyr's was empty, but Virgil's was a packed storage room filled with rusted junk, with another door on the far side. Reporting to each other, Virgil began to crawl through the mess while Khyr moved to the third door. Pushing it open warily, he saw an ogre tinkering with something at a workbench, accompanied by two gigantic rats. Backing away quietly, Khyrralien retreated; the rats perked up at the sound and began sniffing about, the strange scent of an intruder piquing their interest. Khyr hissed a warning into Virgil's room and continued backing down the hall and up the stairs, the rats meandering after him. Finally making it across the junk pile, Virgil carefully opened the door and closed it behind him, finding himself in a dank room covered in lichen. In its centre was some sort of wretched creature, looking like an ogre's body playing host to choking vines. The plant's tendrils undulated softly, and with a grin, Virgil deftly danced past them, his light steps avoiding the vines. The door on the far side of the room was unlocked, and Virgil slipped quietly inside to find a closet containing nothing but a large chest filled with a variety of treasures and goods likely scavenged from unlucky humans who had crossed the ogres' paths and hadn't lived to talk about it. His headache and poor mood forgotten, Virgil laid claim to the cache of "completely legal goods". Having collected everything, choosing to be unmindful of the weight that hampered him, Virgil cast his last use of Invisibility and prepared to escape. However, at that moment Khyrralien chose to enter the plant monster's room from the other side. He had retreated up the stairs when the rats had followed him; one half climbed up after him but gave up, returning to lay at the base of the stairs while the first shuffled back to where it had been staying before. Hopping over the remaining rat's dozing form, Khyr managed to make it to the junk room before his own invisibility spell wore off. In an attempt to rendezvous with Virgil, he walked into the adjacent room to be confronted by the plant. Making a noise of impressed surprise, the fey alerted the plant, whose tendrils lashed about as it began to move towards the sound. Sighing, Virgil managed to avoid the plant's grasping vines and join Khyr, telling him to make a break for it: they were done down here. Khyr followed after the man he couldn't see, mentioning the rat in the hallway. Slowed by the amount of loot he carried, Virgil fell behind his friend, who ran out to face the rat. Snarling at it, he cowed the animal back against the wall while Virgil slipped past; Khyr followed after, the frightened animal hissing at him defensively. Dashing outside and around the side of the house, they rejoined their allies, where Virgil gleefully proclaimed his acquisition of valuables. Distributing them haphazardly among the others to ease the burden of its weight, Ilsa gasped at the sight of a longbow; taking it immediately, she looked it over and held back tears, clenching the wood tightly in her hand as she muttered that there was no mistake: the lion was Kib, and Jack had definitely been here. Having found no trace of any prisoners, or identifiable dead, in the house, the others turned Ilsa's attention towards the dilapidated barn, not wanting to give up hope just yet. She nodded and tried to stay professional as they discussed how they would investigate. Khyrralien had the solution: he pulled the potion of Gaseous Form that he had been carrying out of his pocket; drinking it, he became ghost-like and, with a giggle, floated off towards the barn. Moving about, he found the barn to be separated into two areas: a front room, occupied by three ogres arguing familiarly among themselves, and a back room, accessible by a large padlocked door and by two catwalks that ran up and over the wall. Floating into the back room, avoiding the notice of the ogres, he found it to be absolutely filled with spider webbing. Hanging from the catwalks were a series of cages, most of which were empty. However, one had occupants: three starved, unconscious humans, two men and a woman, all of whom had been stripped to their undergarments and looked on the very brink of death. Khyr himmed thoughtfully; he couldn't get them out as he was, so he floated back towards the ogres. Confident in the security of his gaseous form, he addressed the three openly; they were obviously surprised by the sight, but were more than willing to entertain the ghostly "cloud spirit" and its notions. Following their conversational leads, Khyrralien offered to grant them wishes, namely the leadership of their clan, in exchange for assistance. At first he bid for the freedom of the humans, but the ogres balked: they were food for "Biggun", the giant spider that they kept in the other side of the barn, and without any other food, Biggun would eat them instead. The ogres joshed about feeding "Mammy" to the spider, their corpulent matron, mother of all the ogres in the clan, as well as one of the three of them; Khyr subtly provoked them in these lines of thought. Eventually, one of them stood up and declared that he would go get food for Biggun, in exchange for the cloud spirit's aid in making him the new clan leader. He left the barn and set out into the woods to hunt, leaving the other two to scrutinize Khyr. Knowing that the spell was at its end, Khyrralien made his exit as well, making a show of his ghostly departure. Luckily, the two remaining ogres couldn't be bothered to follow him, and the now-solid Khyr returned to his comrades. Relating his finds to the others, they quickly made a plan to rescue the captive humans. First, one person needed to draw the attention of the roving guard outside, so that he wouldn't interfere with their escape. Second, one of the bards was needed to magically captivate the minds and attentions of the two remaining ogres in the barn. Finally, while the two were distracted, the two undead would run past, enter Biggun's lair and liberate the three captives. As unobtrusively as possible, Virgil tried to explain that the reason that those two had to be the ones to go in was because, with any luck, they wouldn't smell or seem appetizing to a hungry animal, without cluing Ilsa in to their condition; her attentions were fixated on the bow she held, however, and she didn't seem to be paying much mind to the words of the others. Eamon and Ilsa were to wait just inside the barn, in case Luna and Aldern needed help; Virgil and Khyr drew straws, and it fell to the devil to distract the roving guard. With their plan set, the group stepped out. Virgil attempted to captivate the patrol man with his voice, but the subtle magics didn't phase the ogre and he began to assault the winged creature that had walked up behind him. Non-plussed, Virgil took flight, though he sustained several serious injuries while he attempted to put some distance between himself and his assailant. The ogre chased him into the woods, clearing a path for the others. Bursting into the barn, Khyrralien was met with the two ogres he had spoken to earlier; beginning to shake his hips, he magically coerced the other two into joining him. When they were obviously distracted, Luna and Aldern rushed by, making their way up the catwalk and into the webbing-filled room. Swiftly moving towards the one occupied cage, Luna managed to snap open the lock and let them in, as they noticed a movement in the webs. Once inside, they found the three people incapable of waking, so weakened from starvation and thirst. Luna, not physically strong by any stretch, had difficulty lifting even one person, and Aldern could barely carry two; there was nothing for it but to make multiple trips, else they seriously risked being caught by Biggun. Foxglove took up one of the captives and Luna stuck close to him, acting as interference should Biggun attack. As they reached the edge of the catwalk, a single gigantic leg lashed up at them, which Luna protected the others from with her body. Making it back to the main room, where the ogres still danced, Aldern practically tossed the unconscious prisoner at Ilsa and told her to escape while they got the other two. She nodded, taking the person that she immediately recognized as one of her comrades from the Black Arrows, and prepared to escape. Biggun was obviously agitated now, and the two could hear it pulling itself up the walls towards the catwalk as they ran back to the other prisoners. Luna had a sudden revelation, remembering that she had prepared Enlarge Person that day as a possible combat assistance; giving it to Aldern, he doubled in height and breadth, enhancing his carrying ability proportionally. Now he could carry both remaining people, and he so he did, running towards the exit. As he was about to cross into the main room, Biggun crashed upwards, destroying the catwalk and blocking their path. As quickly as possible, they both turned and ran for the other exit, making their way across the boardwalk towards the opposite side; Biggun dropped off the walk and followed, lashing out and harming Luna further. At the last second, Biggun broke through again, smashing the floorboards; Aldern managed to jump through before the way was blocked, and escaped with the prisoners. Luna leapt after him to safety, just barely dodging the giant spider's reach. As they ran past, Khyrralien's magic expired, and the two ogres reacted with shock and violence at the theft that was occurring before their eyes. They focused their ire on the fey as the others escaped, and a teary-eyed Khyr, so sad that their dance had ended so suddenly and so cruelly, departed last. The ogres gave a token chase, but they were quickly left behind. With that, the group retreated into the woods, towards Turtleback Ferry, with the Black Arrows they had rescued. Category:Rise of the Runelords